


I Should Have Danced With You

by Wetislandinthenorthatlantic



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF Molly Hooper, F/M, Fluff, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27858209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wetislandinthenorthatlantic/pseuds/Wetislandinthenorthatlantic
Summary: Molly receives an odd phone call from Mycroft in the middle of the day.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 13
Kudos: 68





	I Should Have Danced With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eliza_doolittlethings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliza_doolittlethings/gifts).



> Fic request from @eliza_doolittlethings 
> 
> "I have a request for a fic/ficlet - Mycroft telephoning Molly and saying " .. I should have danced with you .."
> 
> Here you go! I hope you enjoy it.

It was the middle of the day, and Molly was dead asleep. The NHS was now running 24 hours a day. Covid-19 had caused such a backlog all staff were working flat out to catch up. Bart’s had even created a new ‘nights’ shift for the Pathology Department.

Despite nearly a decade without night shift work, Molly knew the drill. Eat your meals at regular intervals. Drink lots of water. Find the blackout blind covered in star shapes and dinosaur outlines. (Although marketed to new parents every NHS employee she knew had at least one in a drawer somewhere.) Dig out the eye mask, buy some new earplugs.

When her phone rang, Molly was cocooned in her bedroom. Blackout blind up, eye mask on, earplugs in. She was so snug she almost missed the call.

Sitting up, slightly discombobulated, she pushed her eye mask up onto her forehead, looking for the source of light flashing in her darkened room.

Her phone was ringing.

She just about didn’t pick up.

She just about flopped back down on her bed.

She just about missed one of the most important phone calls she had ever received.

Molly reached for her phone, and when she saw MYCROFT on the small screen, a frown appeared on her face as she felt her heart suddenly thumping against her ribs.

Mycroft never called her in the middle of the day. The truth was, he hardly ever rang her at all.

She slid her finger across the screen and put the phone up to her ear.

“Hi Mycroft”

“Hello”

Odd sounds came through the phone. There were rushed footsteps through rustling leaves, and voices in this distance, shouting in a language Molly didn’t recognise or understand.

“Where are you?”

“Molly, I’m ringing to apologise.”

“What for?”

“Last week at Lady Smallwood’s wedding—”

Molly sat up in the middle of her bed. She pulled the eye mask off her head and the earplug out of her other ear. Being woken up from a deep sleep and being expected to turn your brain on instantly was a relatively common occurrence for doctors. Still, she was having trouble getting to grips with this conversation.

“Mycroft, I don’t under-”

“Listen to me.” Molly imagined Mycroft standing there, somewhere, with his eyes closed and his jaw set. His voice had taken on the tone he used when he wanted Sherlock to be quiet. It was his big brother voice.

“Okay,” Molly whispered into the phone.

“I’m sorry. At Lady Smallwood’s wedding last week, I should have danced with you.”

Molly heard a muffled grunt from Mycroft, and the phone cut off.

The blackout blind kept out the light but not the noise and as Molly sat staring at the phone in her hand, the sounds of the city going about its day wafted into the darkened room. It was a car horn that drew her back into London and out of the phone call.

“Shit!” Molly uttered the expletive under her breath as she whipped back the duvet in a perfect arc, causing most of it to land on the floor on the other side of the bed as she raced to her bedroom door and yanked it open. The daylight streaming in from the living room windows momentarily blinded her. Instinctively she held up her hands to shield her eyes as she stumbled into her kitchen.

“Shit, shit, shit” Everything was too sharp, but she knew she had to start looking even before her pupils adjusted. Molly could hear her blood rushing in her ears as she began at the top left of her fridge, pulling off the fridge magnets holding years of household detritus.

The finger paint picture lovingly created three years ago by her nephew ended up landing on the floor.

Molly flung the Waitrose coupons that had expired six months ago behind her.

With increasing irritation, she tossed the work schedule from last month on the counter.

As the layers of memos, memories, and menus were excavated, a ball of fear formed in the pit of Molly’s belly and began to grow. And then the prayers started.

_Please, god, don’t let me have thrown it out._

_Please._

_Please let it still be here._

It was only a scrap of paper— the ripped off corner of a larger piece of paper.

Years ago Mycroft had stood here in her kitchen, wearing his grey flannel suit and a dark blue tie that made his eyes shine more than usual. She had been sitting at the tiny table drinking a cup of tea while she watched him pluck her latest schedule out from under the fluorescent pink plastic Gerbera daisy magnet and place it on the counter. His glance had flicked up to her as he uncapped a fountain pen.

“If you ever receive an odd phone call from me. Ring this number immediately and repeat what I say.”

Molly had laughed at him.

“What like a secret code or something?”

Mycroft had not elaborated as he recapped the pen. Then Molly had watched the long manicured fingers make two creases in the paper then rip it off more accurately than she could have done with scissors. Taking the newly created scrap of paper Mycroft tucked it under the magnet from the ice cream place in Rome where Molly and her uni boyfriend had walked to every afternoon to get two scoops of gelato covered with cream.

It was a central London number written in Mycroft’s precise script with a cross in the middle of the number seven. After that first day, Molly hadn’t given it a second thought.

**_Oh! Thank god!_ **

The air in Molly’s lungs rushed out in relief when the sought after fragment fluttered to the floor landing by her bare feet.

It had been, unhelpfully, tucked inside the menu from the good Chinese take away round the corner that had closed at the beginning of Lockdown 1.0 and never reopened.

Taking a deep breath, Molly typed the number into her phone. He hands were shaking, and she wrapped one arm around her middle as she stood in her kitchen. She shouldn’t be cold, but she was.

A woman who sounded neither too young nor too old answered the call after the first ring.

“Hello”

“Um, hi. My name is Dr Molly Hopper, and I was told to ring this number if I ever received a- this is going to sound silly- an odd phone call from a friend of mine.”

“Dr Hopper, what is the name of your friend?”

“Mr Mycroft Holmes. Do you know him? I mean. He gave me this number ages ago. Does it still work?”

“What did Mr Holmes say?”

“He said he was calling to apologise.

“Dr Hopper, please tell me Mr Holmes' exact words if possible.”

“He said ‘I’m sorry. At Lady Smallwood’s wedding last week. I should have danced with you.’ But the thing is, we didn’t go to a wedding last week. Last month we went to Greg- I mean, Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade’s wedding. This isn’t the sort of thing Mycroft would get wrong. And we danced. I mean, not a lot because his hip was sore. He had been standing up a lot because he was one of the groomsmen, but still. I remember because after we danced he asked for ibuprofen and I was hoping to give him three because he was in a lot of pain and well, it wouldn’t do him any harm but I only had two with me and- well- the phone call- it was strange. Do you want to know about the noises too or just what he said?

“Yes, please.”

Molly then recounted the background sounds on the phone call.

“Is there anything else Dr Hooper?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Thank you for ringing.”

And the line went dead.

Molly looked down at the bits and pieces littering the floor and sighed. She flicked on the electric kettle and took a deep breath. There was no way she was getting back to sleep now.

//

For the next three days, the back of Molly’s arms tingled, and her right leg jiggled when she sat down. She knew she was waiting for some undefined thing, some piece of information that would put her mind at rest. Every morning Molly stared at her office clock willing time to move faster. Each break she checked her phone as soon as she could, and she began to sleep without her earplugs. Was she hoping for an update or expecting an explanation? Mycroft wasn’t one to update her on his movements, work, or otherwise, so Molly didn’t know.

On Wednesday afternoon Molly found out from Sherlock Mycroft was back in town. She had stopped by Baker Street, and he was more of an ass than usual.

“What is the matter with you? I thought you would be a bit more civil with me. Do you know how long it has taken me to collect six kidneys for you?” Molly unceremoniously shoved the plastic Tesco bag containing the requested organs into the meat drawer of the fridge and closed the door with a huff.

“Don’t mind him,” muttered John from behind his newspaper. “He’s grumpy because Mycroft wouldn’t share his prescription pain meds.”

On the sofa, Sherlock curled himself into an even tighter ball and let out a humph.

Molly laid a hand on the counter for support, feeling her blood go cold and her heart rate increase at the mention of his name.

“Prescription meds?”

“Yea. Something about a car accident. I don’t know. I was busy trying to keep this one from going through Mycroft’s coat pockets to catch anything else.”

Molly made her excuses and left Baker Street. She rang Mycroft on her way to the tube; her call went to voice mail.

“Hi. Um. I just saw John and Sherlock and John said something about an accident. Just-- um-- checking to see how you are. I hope you are okay. Oh, um— it’s Molly.” She hung up the phone, embarrassed by how stupid she always felt leaving messages.

Molly slipped her phone into her coat pocket as she entered the underground station and made her way to the Met line platform. While waiting for her train, she mulled over plans to text or call again in a few hours if she hadn’t heard from him. Worst comes to worst; she would ring Anthea after dinner.

Exiting the Moorgate tube station, Molly turned to the left, and her heart leapt into her throat when she saw Mycroft’s car waiting at the end of the street. As she approached, Walter-- Mycroft’s usual driver, got out and opened the door for her. Slipping into the back seat, she was surprised to find it empty.

“Hi, Walter. Good to see you again.”

Molly met Walter’s eyes in the rearview mirror and continued to nervously carry on a one-sided conversation as the car moved quickly through the late afternoon traffic.

“Where is he? It’s weird he sends his car, but not him isn’t it?”

It was a short journey; Walter had driven Molly a grand total of 1km.

Pulling up outside her flat Molly sighed.

“Thanks for the lift. Say hi to Mycroft from me when you see him.” Walter gave her a small smile and nod as he closed her door behind her.

Stepping over the threshold, the wave of relief that washed over her made Molly’s world shudder for an instant.

Mycroft’s coat was hanging on the coat rack.

Molly instantly noticed there were no lights on in her flat. No sounds of Mycroft making tea for them in the kitchen. No Mycroft with his hands on his hips, impatiently watching her take her coat off. Molly dropped her keys in the usual spot, in the brass bowl on the front table, with a loud clang.

Slipping off her coat and hanging it up she called out over her shoulder,

“Hello?”

There was no response.

Molly found him sitting in the dark, in the chair by the couch; the one that was too small for him. His feet were on the floor, his long legs at an odd angle, knees higher than they should be, making it look like he was sitting in a child’s chair.

She turned on one of the side-table lamps, and even in the indirect light, she could see he was far too pale.

“Oh my god.”

As she approached him, Molly noticed tiny beads of sweat on his upper lip. He was in pain. Quite a lot of it, she guessed.

“What happened to you?”

“Car accident.” Mycroft’s gaze held Molly’s, willing her not to probe any deeper. He was lying. They both knew it.

“How many ribs are broken?”

“Three”

Molly effortlessly slipped into doctor mode as her gaze slowly moved over Mycroft from top to bottom.

“Wrist, knee or ankle sprained?”

“Yes” Mycroft tried to cover up a sharp intake of breath, but Molly noticed.

“You aren’t taking all of your meds.”

“Given the family history of prescription drug addition—”

Molly gave him a withering look and went back to his coat to find the cardboard box of pills. Pulling out the blister pack, she noticed only one was gone. Rolling her eyes, Molly got a glass of water from the kitchen and handed it to Mycroft. She pushed two pills out of the packet and held them out to him.

He held her gaze as he swallowed the pills, then reached out his hand. Molly slipped her hand into it; it was cold, almost clammy, and she allowed herself to be drawn in towards the chair.

Mycroft let out a jagged sigh and leaned his head on her leg. Molly’s free hand rested on his head, her fingers running through his hair. She felt him relax under her touch.

“Thank you,” he muttered softly.


End file.
